Assessing PTSD

Assessment of PTSD involves carefully considering the nature of the event itself and the effects this has had on different aspects of our life. The information below will hopefully be useful in helping you to better understand how this diagnosis is used in practice.

DSM-5 Criteria for PTSD

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association revised the PTSD diagnostic criteria in the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (1). The diagnostic criteria are specified below.

Note that DSM-5 introduced a preschool subtype of PTSD for children ages 6 years and younger. The criteria below are specific to adults, adolescents, and children older than 6 years.

Diagnostic criteria for PTSD include a history of exposure to a traumatic event that meets specific stipulations and symptoms from each of four symptom clusters: intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and alterations in arousal and reactivity. The sixth criterion concerns duration of symptoms; the seventh assesses functioning; and, the eighth criterion clarifies symptoms as not attributable to a substance or co-occurring medical condition.

Two specifications are noted including delayed expression and a dissociative subtype of PTSD, the latter of which is new to DSM-5. In both specifications, the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD must be met for application to be warranted.

Criterion A: stressor

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, as follows: (1 required)
1. Direct exposure.
2. Witnessing, in person.
3. Indirectly, by learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. If the event involved actual or threatened death, it must have been violent or accidental.
4. Repeated or extreme indirect exposure to aversive details of the event(s), usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, collecting body parts; professionals repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse). This does not include indirect non-professional exposure through electronic media, television, movies, or pictures.

Criterion B: intrusion symptoms

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in the following way(s): (1 required)
1. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive memories. Note: Children older than 6 may express this symptom in repetitive play.
2. Traumatic nightmares. Note: Children may have frightening dreams without content related to the trauma(s).
3. Dissociative reactions (e.g., flashbacks) which may occur on a continuum from brief episodes to complete loss of consciousness. Note: Children may reenact the event in play.
4. Intense or prolonged distress after exposure to traumatic reminders.
5. Marked physiologic reactivity after exposure to trauma-related stimuli.

Criterion G: functional significance

Criterion H: attribution

Disturbance is not due to medication, substance use, or other illness.

Specify if: With dissociative symptoms.

In addition to meeting criteria for diagnosis, an individual experiences high levels of either of the following in reaction to trauma-related stimuli:1. Depersonalization: experience of being an outside observer of or detached from oneself (e.g., feeling as if "this is not happening to me" or one were in a dream).2. Derealization: experience of unreality, distance, or distortion (e.g., "things are not real").

Specify if: With delayed expression.

Full diagnosis is not met until at least 6 months after the trauma(s), although onset of symptoms may occur immediately.

References

The Post traumatic checklist (PCL5) provides an opportunity to consider the range of problems that people sometimes experience in response to a very stressful experience. This self-assessment questionnaire asks you to keep in mind the worst event you have experienced and to consider each problem area carefully . It asks you to indicate how much you have been bothered by that problem IN THE PAST MONTH.

A copy of this questionnaire is included in the downloadable leaflets section of the website.

How Can I Help Myself?

Whatever the type of traumatic event, the first thing to do is to be kind to yourself....